Electronic Dance Music Checks in at W Hotel

The DJ Dirty South is shown in a photograph by the celebrity DJ photographer Rukes, a k a Drew Ressler, one of the photographs from the exhibition “Inside the Booth” at the W New York hotel in Times Square.

An interactive photography exhibition brings the thumping bass, flashing lights and screaming partygoers of electronic dance music into the quieter confines of the W Times Square Hotel.

Drew Ressler — aka Rukes — the photographer behind “Inside the Booth,” began chronicling the stars of electronic dance music a decade ago, taking his camera to clubs in New York and Los Angeles. It was a way for the teetotaler to fit in with the wild crowds, he said.

In that time, the genre has moved from the fringes into the musical mainstream—and onto the walls of a brand-name hotel.

“It’s a recent history of the DJ boom,” said Rukes of the exhibit, which opens to the public Thursday and runs through September. “I started at the perfect time, right when a lot of the…DJs who are big now where just starting out.”

The show marks the first-ever exhibition by the 32-year-old Long Island native and features his signature photographs: famous DJs, including Dada Life, Deadmau5 and Dirty South, shown from behind as they face teeming masses of dancers.

It also represents the continuation of W Hotels’ unusual push into music as a way to extend its brand and appeal to younger guests.

The boutique chain, owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., is the only big lodging brand with a global music director, whose job includes staging DJ boot camps in which performers rehearse for hotel appearances and create mixes for W’s iPhone app. The second such week-long camp was held last month in Bali.

Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

Some of the photographs from the exhibition “Inside the Booth” by the celebrity DJ photographer Rukes, a k a Drew Ressler.

“Music has always played a role in W’s public spaces,” said Jim McPartlin, the general manager of the W Times Square.

For the Rukes exhibit, the hotel chain has found a way to embrace dance music without disturbing guests. Each photo will have a nearby iPod Touch device allowing visitors to check out music by the DJ pictured.

Most of the photos are snapshots from major festivals, including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The over-the-shoulder images capture the scale of the genre’s big gatherings.

“It’s become the archive of recent EDM history,” said Rukes, using the common acronym for electronic dance music. “Not only does the DJ say, ‘Oh my God, that was an amazing event—look how many people were there.’ Everyone in the crowd can say, ‘I was there too.’ ”

Although Los Angeles is considered the capital of electronic dance music, the scene has had a long history in New York City. The genre gained a following in the 1990s downtown club scene and became the music of choice at raves, the sometimes-illegal warehouse parties that flourished at the time.

Dance music has experienced another renaissance in recent years as more young people download tracks and pop performers like Rihanna and Lady Gaga appropriate its sounds.

“It’s gotten huge,” said Mike Bindra, co-founder of Electric Zoo, one of the nation’s largest electronic dance music festivals that will be held on Randall’s Island this weekend. “Any artist can go online and have huge audiences pick up on” their music.

Electric Zoo has also seen an explosion in festival attendees. Bindra expects more than 100,000 people to descend on the island for the event’s fourth year, up from 25,000 at the inaugural festival in 2009.

As the promoter sees it, electronic dance music is moving away from clubs to become a concert mainstay—much in the way rock musicians adopted larger sounds to fill arenas.

EDM is a “communal experience,” Bindra said, creating spaces where for “letting go and shutting the daily stresses of everyday life.”

Corrections & Amplifications: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Rukes as disc jockey.